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What will be left for us to work on?

normaltech.ai

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Re: What will be left for us to work on?

#51
post #7

Question: Does anybody here yet personally has less (to) work 'cause of AI?

Not me. I made this comment, a few days ago[0]:

> It’s funny. I was looking at my GH activity graph. It’s been pretty solid green, for years. I stay busy.

> But since I’ve been using an LLM, it’s been bright green.

> I always check in code manually. I don’t let the LLM do it.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48843115

Re: What will be left for us to work on?

#52
post #8

I have been writing software for over 40 years and have had a long time interest in and some work in AI over that time. I wouldn’t say this gives me any more prognosticating power about how all of this is ultimately going to go, but I believe we're soon nearing an area of plateauing; whether that's because the science itself is plateauing or the intervention of governments is going to force plateau it. So if things c…

Just FYI, if you know much about the medical field, nurses tend to do most of the actual work, with highly experienced nurses actually taking up the mantle for many duties often done by doctors. Nurses are in far higher demand, than doctors. Your analogy isn’t necessarily wrong, but it might ignore the extreme importance of nurses. Many medical facilities are only staffed with permanent nurses, with doctors helicopte…

I completely agree with you, and I certainly meant no offense to anyone who's a practicing nurse.

I spent some time in the military, and my expression of medics and nurses are mostly derived from that experience, where I'm referring to a nurse as just any warm body who is able to provide aid.

For professional nurses who might work in hospitals, I'm sure that many of them have significant knowledge and experience to be very effective in providing medical assistance.

Re: What will be left for us to work on?

#53
post #22
post #8

I have been writing software for over 40 years and have had a long time interest in and some work in AI over that time. I wouldn’t say this gives me any more prognosticating power about how all of this is ultimately going to go, but I believe we're soon nearing an area of plateauing; whether that's because the science itself is plateauing or the intervention of governments is going to force plateau it. So if things c…

Why would the government force the technology to plateau when the Chinese won't? Outdoing the Chinese is the Trump admin's biggest hobby.

Could have sworn it was trying to convince Iran to accept a peace plan after killing their former leaders who would have committed to one.

Re: What will be left for us to work on?

#55
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if things continue as they are today, I think in the near future, being a software developer is going to be more analogous to the medical field, where in the medical field you have different levels of professional expertise. The medical field is also going to change though. Massively. Because people are going to realize you don’t need to pay someone $400k per year to hand out advice about moderate exercise and w…

> Because people are going to realize you don’t need to pay someone $400k per year to hand out advice about moderate exercise and which antibiotic is appropriate for a sneeze-cough with yellow mucus. Who is going to realize that? The same forces that prevent you from walking into a pharmacy and asking for antibiotics based on what you found on WebMD will prevent you from doing it with a ChatGPT printout in hand. Lawy…

It's basically a formality now to get a prescription for what you read on WebMD. Every Insurance has telemedicine, you just call, read the symptom list and get the prescription. Some even let you just email. There's a doctor or at least person with subscribing ability in the loop, but they are barely doing more than rubber stamping hundreds of requests per day.

Re: What will be left for us to work on?

#56
If AI is used to solve the socialist calculation problem, most of you will die.

If AI is subject to private ownership in a competitive market between competing suppliers, it will be like better cars, we’ll just drive faster.

Power consumption will be a limiting factor in those countries relying on intermittent, weather dependent power generation with no base load. Especially if users prefer Apple’s privacy first AI on edge devices.

Hopefully in western countries it can encourage more young women to bear three children before they turn 35. Young men have to pick up their game and create an environment to redirect their suicidal empathy into more productive pursuits.

“Where can you find another non-linear servo-mechanism weighing only 150 pounds and having great adaptability, that can be produced so cheaply by completely un-skilled labour?” - Albert Crossfield 1954

Re: What will be left for us to work on?

#57

Remember when they created "COBOL" so that everyone could write programs? This is just round two. If you think it is different, just think of how many people write books professionally, or even publish online. Once the noise settles down a bit and boardroom shakes off their delusions as you can see in rehiring in Ford and Zuck who was very bull on AI remark about "not being it". It will be just the same, but differen…

Noise begins to settle down... "Continual RL is all you need" paper comes out.

Re: What will be left for us to work on?

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my org, it's grown the level of work. We had a lot of stuff that was never worth the devtime necessary, but now that's opened up that we can do a lot of this stuff in the background

I think this is underrepresented in everyone's calculations about how AI will affect software engineering. In my experience (and apparently yours as well) this is what many companies are using it for. All those pesky bugs that are minor annoyances but not show-stoppers are getting addressed. They aren't helping us sell more software, but they're dissatisfiers for the customers.

Worth looking into 'Jevons Paradox' for more examples of this sort of thing. TL;DR is that as things become more efficient, whether coal, or programmers, the usage of a good increases as demand skyrockets for what it can be used for.

Re: What will be left for us to work on?

#59
You need to first address 1)What is work? 2)Why we need to work?

Animals don't "work". Not atleast for their own sake. If there is enough green pasture and water around, they don't even migrate to other places. So if work is meant to provide food and shelter and if machines can ensure that, humans don't need to "work".

Wealth is only a reserve capacity to help future generations so that they don't need to work for their basic needs. But if machines ensure that too, then wealth itself, as a reserve, is unnecessary.

Re: What will be left for us to work on?

#60
post #8

I have been writing software for over 40 years and have had a long time interest in and some work in AI over that time. I wouldn’t say this gives me any more prognosticating power about how all of this is ultimately going to go, but I believe we're soon nearing an area of plateauing; whether that's because the science itself is plateauing or the intervention of governments is going to force plateau it. So if things c…

I think what's actually happening is that the "threshold" of technical understanding required to be more productive than average is increasing, and other non-technical skills are becoming more important. Those below the threshold are not able to provide value over anyone else, even if they have a lot of technical experience. For example, I think today a strong PM with no technical ability can produce higher quality t…

For example, I think today a strong PM with no technical ability can produce higher quality technical output compared to a mediocre frontend developer with no project management ability.

Wishful thinking by the managerial class. At best they can vibe code but they can’t verify that what was written is correct.

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